As we move into the season of Lent, we’re offering a series to help each of us prepare the way of the Lord. It’s a good time to take stock of our spiritual practices, and today’s guide is the author John Mark Comer.

In his book Practicing the Way, John Mark explores the practical realities of what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus:

This episode is drawn from an online conversation recorded in 2024.

Many of us have been grieved by the polarization we see rending so many churches. What role has this played in America’s growing secularization and what our guest has called “the great dechurching”? And is that dechurching now actually in reverse? Fundamentally, what can we do to pursue the flourishing of both the church and the nation?

In this episode, our guide is Ryan Burge, an ordained minister, best-selling author and professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University.

His book The Vanishing Church draws upon his scholarship as a data scientist, and his experience as a pastor, to explore how the church has been harmed by, and can offer healing from, the excesses of political combat and division:

This episode is drawn from an online conversation recorded in 2026. Please subscribe to this podcast - it helps people find us.

And we hope you’ll consider becoming a member of our community, the Trinity Forum Society. Join us in exploring timeless Christian wisdom together, so you gain clarity and courage for your own life, and help cultivate a renewed culture of hope. You can do this at our website, ttf.org.

Charisma in leaders is a mysterious phenomenon. Maybe even baffling, if you’re the one left cold by a leader others see as charismatic.

How has this mysterious word charisma, coined by the Apostle Paul but now applied widely, shaped us? How can this concept help us to understand our world?

Our guide in understanding it is the University of North Carolina historian Molly Worthen, who’s also one of our Senior Fellows at the Trinity Forum. She’s written widely on her unexpected turn to Christian faith.

In this conversation, drawing on her book Spellbound, Molly will guide us in understanding the powerful effects of charisma in leadership on religious and political life in America, all the way from the Puritans to the 21st century:

This podcast is an edited version of an Online Conversation recorded in 2025. It’ll help people find us if you subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen.

And we hope you’ll consider becoming a member of our community, the Trinity Forum Society. Join us in exploring timeless Christian wisdom together, so you gain clarity and courage for your own life, and help cultivate a renewed culture of hope. You can do this at our website, ttf.org.